"Can I help you?" he said. His voice was smooth and practiced, the voice of a man who had said the same words ten thousand times and had learned to make them sound helpful without committing himself to helping.
"I would like to see the willow-leaf emerald ring," Octavia said. She pointed to it, clearly, so there would be no mistake about which piece she meant.
The man glanced at the ring, then back at her. "That piece is by-appointment viewing," he said. "We keep our finer pieces for clients who have booked a consultation. I can take your name and arrange a time later in the week, if you like."
Octavia had read the shop's operations manual during the transition. She had read it carefully, the way she read everything that governed a business she was about to own. There was no by-appointment viewing rule in it. There was a procedure for showing high-value pieces, which involved a second staff member being present and the piece being shown over a tray, and there was a procedure for verifying a customer's identity for pieces above a certain value, but there was no rule that a walk-in customer could not see a ring. She knew this, and the man across the case did not know that she knew it. She did not say so. She said, instead, "I understand. Could you tell me a little about it, then? The setting, the stone?"
"We do not discuss the finer pieces without an appointment," the man said, and he began to turn away, as if the conversation were over. At that moment the door opened again, and a man in a tailored coat came in, a man Octavia did not know, carrying a leather portfolio and wearing a watch that caught the light. The man in the dark suit turned toward him at once, his whole manner changing, his face opening into a smile that had not been there a moment before.